A few weeks ago I sat down at the work computer and saw that my coworker had left some tabs open. I glanced over them and almost had a heart attack:
“Oh my god,” I thought. “Are we going to have to have a conversation about race?” The guy is only 21 but he is way too old to be questioning things like interracial friendships. Was he getting brain poisoning from the far right?
I waited anxiously for him to leave the room, and then I clicked on it.
I was… relieved, I guess, but left with strange new questions and concerns:
A legendary demon cat is said to haunt the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. The cat allegedly appears before major tragedies and was reportedly seen by White House guards shortly before both JFK and Abe Lincoln were assassinated. Though the cat hasn’t been seen in years, some say a set of paw prints in the floor by the Old Supreme Court Chamber are proof of its existence.
Y’all I know we joke about the abysmal state of critical reading and thinking on this site but I cannot believe we’re to the point of citing PLINY THE ELDER.
This guy (who died in 79 AD which I only mention bc his name was tossed in here like a contemporary source) wrote a whole bunch about what he considered to be every topic to ever exist. He had a LOT of ideas about the natural world, animals, and how we could use them to treat disease. Do you suffer from a tooth ache? Here’s a passage for you:
To eat a snake’s heart, or to wear it, attached to the body, is considered highly efficacious. There are some among the magicians, who recommend a mouse to be eaten twice a month, as a preventive of tooth-ache. Earth-worms, boiled in oil and injected into the ear on the side affected, afford considerable relief […] (source).
This is the tip of the iceberg with this guy. Moreover, I know at this point most people realize that TIL is a useless source, but I’ve seen this a few times on my dash this month unironically.
We Have to check our sources. I’m begging y’all
Pliny also claimed;
There are 176 types of fish in the sea
That lions give themselves C sections with their claws when giving birth
That there was a kind of tree you had to sneak up on to cut because if you startled it it would turn to stone
And that there was a kind of fish that could control storms.
So NOT perhaps someone you want to cite, folks.
The last one is true I was the fish
PERSONALLY MY FAVORITE PLINY BIT WAS THE GIANT MAN-EATING PAKISTANI HIPPOS
